Travel – Vaccines or Not ?

For those of you not wanting to take travel vaccines I am often asked what I would advise and do I give homeopathic alternatives.

There are of course therapists that prescribe homeopathic remedies as an alternative to vaccines, generally those covering the common childhood issues. The idea here is to give a pre-defined programme of what is termed ‘nosodes’ (remedies made from disease products) that stimulate an existing susceptibility to an illness. If such a remedy does bring out a reaction, then that response is inevitably linked to an issue that has been inherited and therefore not resolved in the parental history. The response to the nosode can therefore be a positive step to resolving underlying health issues and therefore reduces the child’s susceptibility to future illness, including the common childhood illnesses.

If an underlying issue is stimulated, further remedies can help resolve those issues if needed, BUT these nosodes can only act on an existing susceptibility and they can’t prevent something that is not an existing issue in the patient. So it’s important not to feel a false sense of security in a remedy that was give to you as a guess, especially if nothing apparently happened. Security in your health comes from understanding how to promote health, how to resolve underlying issues and how to treat illness without suppressing and making things worse.

Not all homeopaths subscribe to this practice of giving pre-defined programmes of remedies in an attempt to prevent illness. However most homeopaths will achieve the desired result anyway when prescribing individually to their patients, they will not be giving a programme of nosodes (which is inevitably a guess at what is needed) but prescribe specifically according to the presenting symptoms and family history. I personally do not offer a programme of nosodes partly because I don’t feel it necessary to guess at remedies for patients and additionally it has a way of confusing people as to the nature of disease.

These remedy programmes can give the impression that a specific remedy can stop a specific disease and therefore disease could be looked upon as caused  by entities (viruses, bacteria etc) that can get you and depending on what type of entity gets you will determine how serious the illness is, and therefore creates the feeling that remedies can stop these bugs which therefore saves you from illness. When in reality disease is an indication of the way an individual is reacting to their environment, with viruses and bacteria only operating according to our internal environment. Remember viruses and bacteria associated with paralysis, brain damage and death (polio viruses, Hib and meningococcal bacteria) are in all people and create no symptoms of illness and yet something as simple as flu can kill.

I can appreciate that some homeopaths would find it useful to give a pre-defined programme of remedies when wanting to treat large numbers of people, but it can give the impression that one is doing an alternative vaccination but this really isn’t the case.

Travel

With regards to travel vaccines, again I don’t advise specific remedies to prevent specific things. There are some instances where again homeopaths appear to do this for example, it is possible that in an epidemic situation we can see a common remedy that’s helping many individuals, therefore one could give that remedy to lots of people, just in case they need it, especially where individual consultations are not practical … but remember in that instance of mass prescribing it is nevertheless a guess as to what remedy a patient needs, how much to give, how far in advance to prescribe and how frequently to take it.

But to give a remedy to someone who is ‘healthy’ in case they get something serious, is indicative of a misunderstanding of how people get ill … people don’t suddenly catch a serious illness, they get a mild issue that can become serious depending on how it’s treated and depending on the state of the patient at the time. If you are seriously unwell already then it’s not long before you can succumb to something serious … so the best thing to do is to deal with that specifically not guess at a remedy …  and therefore I recommend treatment from someone that can understand your medical susceptibility.

If you are going abroad and are reasonably well then I advise a homeopathic travel kit to deal with the kinds of ailments that are likely to crop up … bites, stings, new food and digestion issues, dehydration, climate issues, jet-lag etc etc plus a few dietary and lifestyle tips, therefore dealing with the simple things so they don’t become serious and complicated.

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